Conductivity Enhancement of Binder-Based Graphene Inks by Photonic Annealing and Subsequent Compression Rolling

• Published in: Advanced engineering materials 2016-07, Vol.18 (7), p.1234-1239
• Main Authors: Arapov, Kirill, Bex, Guy, Hendriks, Rob, Rubingh, Eric, Abbel, Robert, de With, Gijsbertus, Friedrich, Heiner
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Annealing; Compressing; Electrical resistivity; Graphene; High density; Inks; Photonics; Polyethylene terephthalates
• ISSN: 1438-1656; 1527-2648
• DOI: 10.1002/adem.201500646

This paper describes a combination of photonic annealing and compression rolling to improve the conductive properties of printed binder‐based graphene inks. High‐density light pulses result in temperatures up to 500 °C that along with a decrease of resistivity lead to layer expansion. The structural integrity of the printed layers is restored using compression rolling resulting in smooth, dense, and highly conductive graphene films. The layers exhibit a sheet resistance of less than 1.4 Ω □−1 normalized to 25 µm thickness. The proposed approach can potentially be used in a roll‐to‐roll manner with common substrates, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), and paper, paving thereby the road toward high‐volume graphene‐printed electronics. Conductivity enhancement for high‐definition binder‐based graphene inks by photonic annealing with subsequent compression rolling is demonstrated. High‐density light pulses result in a five times decrease of sheet resistance and a layer expansion. Compression rolling restores the structure lowering sheet resistance further reaching 1.4 Ω □−1 when normalized to 25 µm thickness.